


Happy Birthday to Tasslehoff

by Fire_Fox_0111



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: Birthday present for Ice_Fox, Gen, mostly fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Fox_0111/pseuds/Fire_Fox_0111
Summary: Exactly what the title suggests. Tasslehoff’s friends attempt to make a birthday cake for him, but it doesn’t go quite to plan... Meanwhile, Tas wanders off on his own and amuses himself as usual.





	Happy Birthday to Tasslehoff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ice_Fox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Fox/gifts).



> To Ice_Fox:  
> Happy birthday! I originally meant this to be a pretty short fanfic, but as usual I got carried away. I hope you like it anyway ;)

“Happy birthday to me,

Happy birthday to me,

Happy birthday dear Tasslehoff,

Happy birthday tooooo meeeeee!”

Tasslehoff Burfoot skipped down the path towards the Inn of the Last Home, his tassel of brown hair bouncing wildly as he went. It was plain to see that the kender was highly excited (that is, slightly more excited than usual), and why shouldn’t he be? It was his birthday, after all. Tas may not have been entirely certain how old he was - he had told young Tika Waylan that he was six hundred and ninety-three, whilst Flint maintained, half-seriously, that he must be about five years old - but that didn’t prevent his birthday from being a cause for celebration.

Speaking of Flint - there was the dwarf himself, sat on a fallen log just along the path. In his hands was a piece of birch-twig and a whittling knife. Clearly he was absorbed in his craft, Tasslehoff thought, giggling to himself; the kender was already planning a crafty ambush.

A moment later, Flint gave a startled yell as a child-sized figure burst from the bushes, whirling a whistling hoopak and screeching like a hobgoblin on fire. “Great Reorx!” he cursed, nearly dropping the whittling knife on his foot. The screech turned into laughter as Tas fell about on the floor with mirth.

“Sorry - sorry!” he gasped, “but you should have seen your face, Flint! I wanted to surprise you.” The kender leapt lightly to his feet. “Guess what day it is.”

“What? I know the days of the week, you muppet,” the dwarf retorted. “It’s Windsday. No, wait - it’s Dracoday.” His brow furrowed. “Damn - now you’ve made me doubt myself.”

“Is it any special kind of day?” Tas prompted.

“Not that I know of... unless Otik’s doing a special offer on fried potatoes today.” Flint picked up the knife and resumed his whittling, humming a tune under his breath.

Tas shrugged, disappointed. _Oh well_ , he thought, _at least Tanis and the others might have remembered my birthday_. So on he went towards the Inn of the Last Home.

* * *

 

“You didn’t get him a present either?”

“No,” admitted Caramon, setting his mug of ale down on the wooden tabletop. “Completely forgot. Neither of us got him anything, did we, Raist?”

Raistlin’s wan, pale face was expressionless. “No,” he replied. “I have been busy practicing the most advanced of my spells, and you... what have you been doing, exactly?”

Caramon either didn’t notice his brother’s implied mockery, or - more likely - pretended he hadn’t noticed. “Oh, this and that. Training with Kit when she lets me, training without her when she doesn’t. Sitting in here making sure Otik doesn’t go out of business.” He grinned. Judging by the constant stream of conversation, drinks and fried potatoes around the room, that was hardly likely. “Anyway, do you remember what happened last year when we got that kender presents?”

“Yes - we hid them in a cupboard with a padlock on,” said Sturm. “And then, of course, he picked the lock.”

“And found his presents, unwrapped them all, then tried to wrap them back up again,” Tanis remembered, laughing. “That ruined the surprise all right.”

Sturm stroked his moustaches thoughtfully. “Still,” he pointed out, “we can’t give him nothing. It wouldn’t be right. Think of all the things he gave us for our birthdays.”

“You mean when he gave you a comb identical to the one Tanis had ‘lost’?” Caramon said. “Or when he gave me the shoes he had ‘borrowed’ from Otik? Or when-“

“Yes, I know,” Tanis smiled, “but the intention was there. What is it people say - ‘it’s the thought that counts’? And Tas definitely gave it some thought.” His smile faded a little. “What are we going to give him, though? We can’t just take other people’s things.”

“And I doubt we have time to make him anything this morning,” Sturm added gloomily.

“Well... I suppose we could try,” Tanis mused. “If we all worked together, we could at least make him a card.”

“Or a cake,” suggested Caramon, looking wistfully at the plum pudding being brought to the neighbouring table.

“A cake! Of course!” said Tanis. “We’ll make him a birthday cake. Or we can try to, at least. I’m sure Otik has a good recipe somewhere.”

Sturm looked doubtful. “I don’t know - I’ve never tried - but doesn’t it take quite a while to bake a cake? And decorate it, too.”

“It’ll be fine,” Caramon asserted brusquely. He was quite proud of his idea and didn’t want to see it quashed. “What sort of cake would Tasslehoff like anyhow? Honeycake? Or dortberry cake? Or... how about buttered brandy cake?”

Tanis thought back to when the kender had taken a picnic down to the river, the day he went fishing and came back soaking wet (but no less excitable). Somehow he remembered that Tas had taken some sort of cake with him... something Otik had given him from the Inn’s leftovers that day...

“Fruitcake,” Tanis determined. “I’m sure Tas likes fruitcake. One with plenty of currants and brandy in it.”

“Maybe because he is a fruitcake,” muttered Caramon, in a very audible tone.

“And he’s coming this way, brother,” Raistlin remarked coolly.

 Caramon looked around, startled. “How do you know?”

“Oh, I looked out of the window,” his brother replied with a nonchalant wave of his hand. And, sure enough, the kender could be seen skipping along the path below, singing a rather rude song at the top of his high-pitched voice.

Tanis rapidly withdrew his head from the window. “If we distract him now, we might be able to make a small cake before he gets here...” Even as he said this, he knew that there was a very slim chance of keeping the kender away from the Inn for long enough to bake a birthday cake. Still, he thought, it was worth giving it a try. “Raistlin,” he asked reluctantly, “do you have a spell or two that we can use to distract Tas?”

The young mage’s face was impassive, but Tanis thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Yes,” he said, “I believe I may be _just_ skilled enough to perform the task of distracting a kender.”

“Good. Thank you,” Tanis replied, a little awkwardly. “Now,” he added, addressing the rest of them, “let’s get started with this cake.”

* * *

 

Tasslehoff had almost reached the Inn when he saw a face at the window, high above him, peering between the branches of the mighty vallenwood tree. Tanis!

The kender was just about to wave up to his friend, when Tanis suddenly drew back from the window with a jerk. That was odd, Tas thought, but he wasn’t particularly concerned. He was too preoccupied with thoughts of his birthday to think of much else.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something falling through the trees. Only a leaf, thought Tasslehoff. Then another one fell, and another, and another. And as they fell, the leafy things unfurled themselves into a flock of tiny birds!

They swooped down towards the kender, swirling around the top of his head and singing melodiously in high, piping voices. Gleefully Tas swirled with them, his brown eyes wide with wonder and excitement; the little birds circled low to the ground, like autumn leaves caught by an eddy of wind. They were so close that Tas could see their speckled green bodies and the pale, branchlike patterns on their wings. A very unusual sort of bird, and certainly not one he had ever seen in Solace before. “Perhaps they’re a migratory species,” he said to himself. Then another gust of wind blew through the trees and the birds scattered upwards again, winging away towards the north. Tasslehoff chased after them merrily, laughing.

He had followed them for only a minute, however, before the birds flew off into the branches of a vallenwood tree, becoming camouflaged in its foliage. (Little did he know that at this point, Raistlin’s spell of transformation had worn off and the ‘birds’ had turned to leaves again.) Tas was a little disappointed, but not very much. The little flock had led him to the edge of a very pleasant picnic-spot, sheltered from the wind by the trunks of the vallenwoods, but not overshadowed; there was a small clear stream running alongside the clearing, and someone had set up a makeshift table using an old tree stump with small logs for stools. At this table sat a small group of girls, all about seventeen or eighteen, eating bread and apples from a picnic basket.

As one of the girls turned round to say something to her friend, Tas saw her face - he vaguely recognised her as Kitiara’s ‘friend’ (or, rather, her desperate admirer), Isolda Winrose. Her hairstyle was almost an exact copy of Kit’s - although her hair was blonde - and although she didn’t possess the powerful beauty of the young warrior, she was still rather pretty. Tas called to her and wolf-whistled cheekily. Immediately Isolda glared at him, said something to the other girls, and then they all hurried away, taking the picnic basket with them.

Clearly Tas wasn’t wanted - but then a kender is rarely wanted by anybody. _Oh well_ , he thought, a little sadly; _at least now I can enjoy the place to myself_. Just that thought was enough to cheer him up. He leapt up onto the tree-stump table, imagining it to be a podium in front of a great crowd of onlookers, and nimbly sprang off in a neat double backflip. The invisible crowd cheered wildly as Tasslehoff bowed, his topknot brushing the floor. He must have straightened up too suddenly, however, as suddenly he felt dizzy and had to sit down on one of the logs.

What was this? Something small and soft underneath him. He had sat on a small package, evidently left by one of the girls. Tas unwrapped it. Inside was a fresh bread roll, soft as a pillow, its golden-brown crust speckled with oats. At this point Tas realised that he hadn’t had any breakfast, and was now rather hungry. Waste not, want not, he thought, and bit into the roll’s soft crust. 

It turned out to be an even better breakfast than he had thought: the middle of the bread roll was stuffed with cheese, onion and pieces of apple. Tasslehoff savoured every bit of it and didn’t feel remotely guilty. After all, nobody had come back to claim it, so by rights, it was his (or so he believed). As kender say, if the milk is spilt, the cat will lick it.

* * *

 

“The milk’s spilt,” Caramon complained, “and I’ve got cake mixture everywhere from my eyebrows to my fingernails. Suppose we stop now and clear up?” He glanced over at the bowl and wooden spoon still coated in raw cake batter. Someone had to clean that up, surely?

But Tanis shook his head. “We don’t have time,” he replied. “Sturm, where did you put the currants?”

The knight was just about to answer, when Flint poked his head round the door. “What’s all this?” he demanded suspiciously. “Otik told me you three had taken over the kitchen. You’re not... baking, are you?”

“We are,” Sturm replied, with a note of proud defiance in his voice. “We’re making a cake for Tasslehoff’s birthday.”

Flint stared at the lumpy cake mixture in the bowl, the mess on the table and the milk dripping onto the floor. He was silent for a moment. “Good luck with that,” he said eventually, before wandering back out to the bar.

“Aren’t you going to help us?” Caramon bellowed after him, but the stubborn dwarf had already gone. Someone else, however, had come in his place.

“I’ll help you,” said a shy voice, “if you don’t mind, of course.” It was Tika Waylan. The young girl had already tied up her unruly red hair in anticipation of the task, and she wore a little white apron, fresh from the wash.

“Of course you can,” said Tanis warmly. “Many hands make light work.” In his head, though, he was thinking, _Too many cooks spoil the cake._

“Yessss!” Tika pushed up her sleeves determinedly. She was going to help the friends she admired! This was going to be fun.

* * *

 

Tasslehoff wandered back towards the Inn, whistling merrily again. It had started to rain and everyone else had gone in, but kenders don’t mind the rain; Tas, in particular, loved it. Two rain-dances and nineteen puddle-splashes later, he was soaked to the skin - but he didn’t care. It was a warm day, and as soon as the rain stopped, he began to dry off. A rainbow arched boldly through the sky like a sweep of paint, making Tasslehoff bend over backwards trying to see the whole of it. The best rainbow he had ever seen, he thought, and wondered if there was a pot of gold at the end of it.

Gradually the rainbow faded out of sight as Tas approached the Inn of the Last Home once more. This time, he ascended the spiral of steps curving their way around the vallenwood tree, and entered through the doorway into the cosy dimness of the Inn. To his surprise, Raistlin and Flint were sat alone together (although they seemed to be ignoring each other resolutely). “Hi!” Tas greeted them. “Where’re the others?”

“They’re all...” Flint began, but Raistlin cut in smoothly. “They are all busy and have no desire to see you at the moment, Tasslehoff Burrfoot.”

“But it’s my birthday!” Tas indignantly protested. “Why don’t they want... hang on.” He sniffed the air suspiciously. “What’s that smell?” And indeed, from the kitchen there came a mild but distinct smell of burning.

* * *

 

“Damn,” Caramon cursed. “We’ve burnt Tasslehoff’s cake.”

Sturm opened the oven, burned his hand, yelped, and withdrew hastily as a small cloud of smoke billowed out. “I think you mean _you’ve_ burnt Tasslehoff’s cake,” he said stiffly, trying to recover his dignity. “You were supposed to be the one watching the time.”

Tika was sat on the tabletop, swinging her legs in midair. She didn’t like to see her heroes arguing, but she was very proud of the fact that she was the one to assist them. “Maybe you could cut off the burnt bits,” she suggested. So Sturm (wearing oven gloves this time) removed the cake from the oven, and Tanis gently sliced the blackened layer from the top.

“It’s still burnt around the sides,” Caramon pointed out. Cutting off the sides, however, proved to be surprisingly difficult. By the time they had finished, the cake was not so much circular, as hexagonal with two rounded sides. Tanis tried to round it out again, but the result was even worse. Eventually they decided to cut it into a square instead; the resulting cake was now about half its original size. Caramon looked at it gloomily.

“That’s not a cake,” he complained. “That’s more like a... like a tiny piece of cake. Like a mid-morning snack.”

“I don’t suppose Tas will mind,” said Tanis, although he had his doubts. “I wonder where...” Then he stopped abruptly. Something had brushed the back of his neck.

“You wonder where what?” Caramon prompted, then made a noise of shock as his neck, too, was brushed by a mysterious object. This time Tasslehoff wasn’t quite fast enough in withdrawing himself - or the rolling pin he had just used to poke Caramon.

“Tasslehoff!” the big warrior growled. “Trust you to turn up now!”

Tas grinned. “I smelled something burning. So I followed my nose, and sure enough, I found you three!” He tilted his head towards the cake. “Is that for me?”

“Well, it was supposed to be your birthday cake,” said Sturm mournfully, “but... well, we ruined it.”

“I love it!” the kender exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Fruitcake is my favourite!” Then his face fell. “Do I have to share it?”

Caramon opened his mouth to reply, but Tanis interrupted. “Of course not, Tas. It’s your birthday; you can have it all to yourself.”

Tasslehoff’s little face broke into a grin again. “Brilliant! Thanks, Tanis,” he said. “This is my favourite present so far.”

“So far? Why, what else did you get?”

Promptly Tas produced a handful of items from his bag. “I got a compass from the old woman who sits by the bar... this sheath’s from a very nice man I met on the way here... I got a belt-buckle from Otik... oh, and Isolda Winrose gave me a bread roll!” he added proudly.

Sturm looked at the trinkets suspiciously. “Did all of these people actually give you those things, or...”

Tas looked scandalised. “Of course they did!” he said with defiance. “It’s my birthday, so they’re all my birthday presents.”

The three friends exchanged a look and rolled their eyes. Tika - still sat on the countertop - couldn’t help giggling.

“It’s been such a wonderful morning,” Tas continued excitedly. “I saw a flock of tiny leaf-shaped birds, so I followed them and they led me to the picnic-table in a little clearing, and that was where I saw Isolda and her friends, and got the bread roll, and then it started raining, so I headed back, and there was a rainbow - oh, it was wonderful, Tanis! you could see all of the colours so distinctly, and...”

Tanis sighed inwardly as the kender jabbered on. Even on his birthday, was there any kind way to make him shut up? Fortunately Tasslehoff’s monologue was interrupted by Otik shouting from the bar-room.

“Where did I put my belt-buckle?”

* * *

 

Eventually, Tas gave most of his ‘presents’ back (although he never found the man from whom he had acquired the sheath). He even shared a little of his cake in the end, although only Flint and Caramon accepted it. But there was one present which Tasslehoff got to keep all to himself.

The birch-twig Flint had been whittling that morning was a birch-twig no longer. It was now a tiny little flute, expertly engraved with slender curling leaves that subtly morphed into birds. When Flint gave it to him, Tas whooped and hugged him so tightly that his face went red (though whether that was from embarrassment or from lack of air, it was hard to say).

The other friends had secretly worried about the flute. Giving a kender a musical instrument was akin to giving them a weapon of torture. But Flint had crafted it so well that the sound was neither loud, nor shrill: it was gentle and sweet like birdsong, so nobody minded when Tas spent the next three hours piping away on his birthday present.

As midnight drew near and the cake was all but gone, Sturm produced a candle and lit it. The smell of warm beeswax drifted through the air as the companions gathered around it and sang:

“Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Tasslehoff,

Happy birthday to you!”

Then Tas blew out the candle and the flame was extinguished - but inside, he felt its glow still lightening his heart.

 


End file.
